


The Bodyguard

by ArgentLives



Series: Across Every Universe (You are Home) [15]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Crushes, F/M, Fluff, Height Differences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 08:14:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4869713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentLives/pseuds/ArgentLives
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I don’t know…” he says, conflicted, glancing back at the classroom where he’s supposed to be sitting in right now, working on shading his miserable square. On the one hand, he’s never skipped class before, and the thought is sort of terrifying. On the other hand, it means spending time with her—which is a pretty gigantic plus. And then, as he’s mulling it over, weighing out the pros and cons in his mind, she pouts at him at bats her eyelashes, clasping her hands together with an adorable little ‘pleaaase—for me?’, and any objections he might have had vanish on the spot. “Okay,” he nods, feeling a little dazed, and before he can process what happening she's beaming at him and grabbing his hand, tugging him down the hallway.</p><p> </p><p>[Barry gets unexpectedly interrupted while in art class, but considering who it's by, he's not exactly complaining]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bodyguard

**Author's Note:**

> written for the prompt: "I’m in art class and I just opened a cupboard to find a tiny person (you) squished inside and you just looked at me and said 'shh i’m hiding'"

Art class is probably like…his least favorite subject. He tells himself with his head held high that it’s just because it’s not science, that it’s not something he can solve or make sense of with logic or reasoning or research. It’s abstract, it’s open to interpretation, and it’s just not his cup of tea. In reality, he knows that it’s actually none of those things. He can claim he doesn’t like art because it’s subjective until he’s blue in the face, but the truth is the only reason he’s so opposed to it is because he’s downright awful at it. It’s sort of painful to sit through an entire class struggling to paint something as simple as a piece of fruit.

But an art class is required for the school’s core curriculum, and his advisor had shot down his proposition that Chemistry counted as such—because ‘ _technically_  it meant creating things in lab (and after all, wasn’t art all about creating things?)’—, so it his choice had boiled down to either this or a performing arts class. In the end, he’d conceded that all things considered, the only thing he was worse at than making art was anything that required any semblance of coordination, so this was probably the slightly less humiliating option.

It’s towards the middle of the period, and he’s beyond frustrated, his brows furrowed in concentration, lips pursued tight, as he attempts to appropriately shade a square with the charcoal they’ve been given. He knows his occasional grunts and groans at his less-than-promising progress are starting to draw the attention of some of his classmates sitting around him, but he can’t stop. And then the charcoal stick he’s using—the fourth one he’s gone through already today—snaps, and he makes a strangled noise as he slams his head on the desk in defeat, drawing the attention of his teacher.

“Problem, Allen?”

He feels his face heat up as everyone in the room turns to stare at him. “I—Uh, I’m sorry, Mr. Green. My charcoal broke again, and, uh…I’m out of it, now.”

His teacher gives a long-suffering sigh as the rest of his classmates lose interest and return to their own work. “This is the third time this week, Allen. You’re going to single-handedly deplete the school’s charcoal supply if you keep this up. Go grab some a few new pieces from the supplies cupboard—you know the drill. And  _please_  try to be more careful this time.”

Barry nods hastily and slips off his stool, hurrying over to the all-too familiar cupboard near the sink where he knows most of the art supplies are kept, desperate not to draw any more attention to himself. He pulls open the door to the cupboard, prepared to hurriedly grab what he needs and return to his seat, and nearly has a heart attack when he finds himself looking down at a person, squished in the corner next to all the supplies. And not just any person either—that’s Iris West, arguably one of the most popular girls in the school, that he’s looking at right now. He clears his throat, unsure what to make of the situation.

“Um.”

She blinks up at him in surprise as he stares down at her in bemusement, and as he opens his mouth again to ask she puts a finger to her lips and makes a  _shh_ -ing noise. He snaps his mouth shut, taking the hint, and glances left and right before kneeling down so that he’s more at eye-level with her.

“Um,” he repeats eloquently, gesturing to her predicament, “What…?”

“Don’t ask,” she sighs, and he raises an eyebrow at her. “Okay, right, you’re gonna ask anyway. I’m playing Assassins and I found out that the person assigned to take me out was planning on getting me this period. So I’m hiding.” 

Her explanation only leaves him more confused, especially as to why she’s in  _here,_  in this room, in this… _cupboard…_ of all places, if that’s the case.

“Okay, but…I…uh…I don’t think your in this class?” he phrases it like a question, as though he’s not really sure, even though he so totally is. He would have known if Iris, the girl he’s had the biggest, neon crush on since elementary school, who he’s always admired from afar, who he’s always super aware of whether she’s two feet away or twenty, was in the same class as him. But he can’t let her know that–she probably doesn’t even know he exists.

She blinks at him again, and then hurriedly peeks her head out of the cupboard, making him stumble back a bit in surprise, and sweeps her gaze quickly around the room before shrinking back again. She shakes her head in disbelief. “Well, shit. You’re right—I’m in the one before this. I didn’t even hear the bell ring.”

She bites her lip, considering, and gestures for him to come closer. He does, his heart speeding up as she leans closer to him, leaving their faces only inches apart. “What if they’re still in the room, though?” she whispers, “People go hard in this game. How am I gonna escape unnoticed?”

He throws a glance over his shoulder to make sure no one has caught on to what’s happening, and lets out a breath of relief to find that everyone is still absorbed in their work, and his teacher is back at his desk—probably playing Sudoku on his computer.

“No one seems to be paying attention. You might be able to sneakout?” he offers helpfully, not wanting to disappoint her. She shakes her head. 

“Nah, too risky. Unless…ooh, I know!” her eyes light up as something seems to occur to her. “You’re tall. You could cover me while I make a run for it!”

“Uh…sure,” he says, baffled, not really sure what he’s getting himself in to but unwilling to say no and squash her excitement. Which is how she ends up ducking behind him as he shuffles rather conspicuously out the door, shielding her from view, thanking God that the teacher’s left it propped open. When they’re far enough away from the classroom, she peeks out from around his side and surveys the area. “Is there anyone around?”

He shakes his head in amusement, checking left and right for good measure. “Nah, the coast is clear,” he assures her, and she sighs in relief, finally coming out from behind him.

He should just bid her goodbye and head back to class, but curiosity gets the best of him. Besides, life is giving him an opportunity to talk to  _Iris West_ , to have an actual, one-on-one conversation with her, the girl he’s liked for as long as he’s even had the capacity to like someone, and he’s not about to pass that up. “So, what exactly is this Assasins game?”

“Oh—sorry, I just assumed everyone knew. Well, you’re assigned to a person, and a person is assigned to you, except you don’t know who the person who’s been assigned to kill you is, so you always have to be on your toes, and whoever stays in the longest and takes out their own target without getting killed wins. It’s super stressful.”

“Killed?” he echoes, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” she nods, pulling a mini water gun out of her back pocket and brandishing it in front of him. “With this! Like, you just find your person and— _pew pew_.” 

He laughs at the sound effects she makes as she squirts the water gun at him, hitting him square on the forehead. He blinks the water out of his eyes as it trickles down his face. “Hey, uncalled for! Why the head-shot?”

She grins at him, reaching up to rub something off his forehead and then his nose, and as her fingers graze his skin he’s pretty sure he might have stopped breathing. He gulps, his Adam’s apple bobbing comically in his throat as his mind struggles to form a coherent sentence, only managing a “ _Wha—?_ ” 

“You have charcoal all over your face, dude,” she explains, “Thought I’d do you a favor and clean some of it off for you.”

“Ah.” He manages a strained  _thanks_ , struggling to keep his cool, and when she opens her mouth to say something else, something behind him seems to catch her attention. Her eyes go wide in horror. “Oh no—I think I just saw someone hiding behind that wall over there. I need to—wait, actually…you should come with me. You could be my bodyguard!” she says, hitting his arm excitedly, and not for the first time in the past, like, five minutes, she’s completely taken him aback.

“Bodyguard…?”

“Yeah! Shield me from whoever’s out to get me. I promise it won’t be hard.”

“I don’t know…” he says, conflicted, glancing back at the classroom where he’s supposed to be sitting in right now, working on shading his miserable square. On the one hand, he’s never skipped class before, and the thought is sort of terrifying. On the other hand, it means spending time with her—which is a pretty gigantic plus. And then, as he’s mulling it over, weighing out the pros and cons in his mind, she pouts at him at bats her eyelashes, clasping her hands together with an adorable little  _‘pleaaase—for me?’,_  and any objections he might have had vanish on the spot. “Okay,” he nods, feeling a little dazed, and before he can process what happening she's beaming at him and grabbing his hand, tugging him down the hallway.

“Great! Come on then, let’s head this way. Put as much distance between us and whoever that was as possible, just in case.“ 

He stumbles along behind her as she starts to run, but she keeps her grip on his hand tight as she makes her way towards the door to the breezeway. This is the most rebellious thing he’s ever done in school–and listening to her breathless little laugh, savoring her hand holding his, finally managing to fall in step with her, he finds that he sort of likes it. It’s new, it’s different, it’s exhilarating. At least it is until they get caught.

“Hey—you two! Stop! No running in the hallways!” a voice calls from behind them, and Barry immediately freezes, coming to an abrupt halt as Iris keeps running, her grip on his hand slipping and causing her to stumble. She stops too when she realizes what’s happened and turns, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Really, dude? You’re giving in that easily? We could’ve outrun her!”

He shrugs, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly, and opens his mouth to explain himself, but before he can say anything else he catches the sound of heels clacking against the tile floor close behind them. Almost in sync, they whip around towards the source of the noise to face a furious, mean-looking woman-–a teacher he thinks he’s seen around before-–storming towards them. She comes to a stop in front of them, narrowing her eyes and wagging a finger at them in admonishment. “And just where do you two think you’re going?”

Iris glances sideways at Barry, meeting his wide eyed gaze and giving him a placating look, as if reading his mind, and she communicates a silent  _‘I got this’_ tocalm him down. Oddly enough, it sort of works.

“We were just—”

“Let me guess, another one of your little adventures, Ms. West?” the woman cuts her off, shaking her head in disapproval and jotting something down on the little notepad she’s just extracted from her jacket pocket. Iris scuffs her shoe on the ground and just out her bottom lip before looking up at the woman through her eyelashes, with big, innocent-looking eyes.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Freeman, I really am. Things have been really stressful lately, and I’m dealing with a lot, so we were heading outside to get some fresh air. It was my idea though–if you’re going to punish me, please don’t punish my friend Barry here for it, too. He’s a good guy—he was just trying to help me feel better.”

Her voice is saccharine-sweet and she sounds so convincing that judging by the way Mrs. Freeman’s expression starts to soften–-an odd look on such a hard face—for a moment he thinks they might just get away with it. He has to look away as Iris tries to glance sideways at him again and catch his eye, partly because his heart is racing at the thought of her trying to defend him, at the fact that apparently she does know his name after all, and partly because he’s afraid he might laugh at how thick she’s laying on the charm and blow any chance of escape for the both of them. In the end, it doesn’t matter anyway, because Mrs. Freeman shakes her head and sets her mouth in renewed dissatisfaction. “That’s no excuse, Ms. West. I expect this kind of behavior from you,” she pauses and then turns her hawk-eyed glare on Barry, “but I’m surprised at you for playing along with these shenanigans, young man.”

Barry blushes and stares resolutely at the ground, mumbling an apology, briefly wondering how she could have expected better from him when she doesn’t even know him. Still, getting in trouble for breaking the rules at schools is definitely not something he’s used to, let alone getting scolded by a teacher like this. But when he feels something nudge his shoulder and glances to his side to find Iris looking at him, eyes apologetic, mouthing the words  _“Sorry, Barry,”_  and he remembers that his long-time crush  _knows his name_ , he can’t bring himself to regret it, not until Mrs. Freeman rips off two pieces of paper from her notepad and hands one to each of them. There’s a lot of words scribbled on it but there’s only one that matters, the evil little world that’s scrawled out at the top in all capital letters like a death sentence. Detention.

“Both of you, get back to class immediately. And I will see you after school in detention, room 105. 3:00 sharp—do  _not_  be late.”

He nods meekly, and he tries not to feel too terrible about himself when he catches Mrs. Freeman shaking her head in disappointment at the two of them in the periphery of his vision, muttering something about ‘troublemakers’ under her breath. He refuses to lift his gaze from the ground until after he hears the clacking of her heels again, signalling her departure. Iris lets out a deep breath, and of all things, as soon as the teacher is out of earshot, starts to laugh. “Well, that was dramatic. She’s always making such a big deal about the most pointless things, you know? You’d think we were under arrest or something. And who even says ‘shenanigans’ anymore?”

She’s right, of course, but the word ‘detention’ is still bouncing around unpleasantly in Barry’s head, and he can’t bring himself to laugh with her, even though it’d normally be contagious. He’s never been in detention before. He feels awful, like a bad student. He might be late to like, every other class, but otherwise he’s never stepped a foot out of line.  _Detention?_  The word makes him feel sick.

“Hey, you okay, Barry? I’m really sorry I got you in trouble–I didn’t want that,” she frowns, and he’s about to tell her not to worry, that it’s not her fault because it was his decision to go along with it too, and that even if it was her fault he still couldn’t be mad at her if he tried. But then he registers the use of his name again, and his mind gets stuck on it, his thoughts abruptly changing course.

“I didn’t know you knew my name,” he says stupidly, kicking himself right after for blurting it out of the blue.

“Oh. Yeah, I know it…is that weird?” For the first time, she sounds nervous, unsure of herself, her voice lacking that usual easy confidence.

“No, no, not at all. I know yours, anyway—Iris West, right?” He waits for her to nod, even though the notion that her name hasn’t crossed his mind about a million times, that he hasn’t had it memorized since second grade, that essentially everyone in the school doesn’t know who she is too, is laughable. “I’m just surprised is all. I’m sort of a nobody.”

She scoffs at him. “Oh, come on, that’s totally not true. You’re like, one of the smartest people in our year. Plus, you’ve kind of got a reputation for being perpetually late.”

“Oh. Right. Thanks…I think?” His face feels hot and he knows it must be bright red–whether from being flattered over her first comment or embarrassed over her second, he’s not quite sure.

There’s the faintest hint of a smirk on her lips as she pats his shoulder. “Don’t mention it. Now get back to class–we should get out of here in case Mrs. Freeman comes back. She’s on the warpath today.”

“Yeah,” he says, his mood plummeting, miserable at the sudden reminder of their recent unpleasant encounter. He really should be leaving–one detention is more than enough, he thinks he’d probably have a heart attack if he was given another in the same day. Before he makes to leave, he hesitates for a moment, unsure of what to say and desperately trying to work up the courage to maybe ask for her number, but in the end all he can think of is a lame “Um, bye?” He turns quickly on his heel before she can see the pathetic look on his face and starts to make his way back to class, his head hanging in shame. 

“I guess I’ll see you later, then. After school. We’ll make it fun, I promise—I’m gonna make it up to you for getting you stuck there in the first place,” she calls out after him. At the sound of her voice, his head shoots up in surprise, and he turns to look at her just in time to catch her winking at him.

“Yeah. Yeah, see you then,” he breathes, managing a smile, his spirits lifting again. As she smiles back before turning and pelting down the hall in the other direction, he feels that familiar swooping sensation in his stomach, that particular fluttering feeling one he gets whenever he sees her face light up like that, except this time it’s so strong it leaves him a little light headed because she’s smiling at  _him_  and  _for_  him andthey’re going to be spending more time together later and why didn’t he think of that in the first place because _oh my god_.

He can’t even bring himself to feel guilty when he walks back into art class, his teacher’s heavy glare at his back as he makes his way back to his seat with a wide, goofy grin plastered across his face. He picks up his charcoal with renewed vigor, paying no mind to the amused and slightly put-out stares of his classmates as he whistles to himself while he works, thinking that maybe detention won’t be such a bad thing, after all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on my [tumblr](http://bisexualiriswest.tumblr.com/), as most of these prompt fills are.


End file.
